


To Everything, There Is A Season

by kinetikatrue



Category: Footloose (1984)
Genre: Future Fic, Inconvenient Arousal, Jerking off in the shower, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:02:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28148043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinetikatrue/pseuds/kinetikatrue
Summary: Willard's still farming the Hewitt place. Ren went off to college - and didn't come back. Until now.
Relationships: Willard Hewitt/Ren McCormack
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	To Everything, There Is A Season

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thefourthvine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefourthvine/gifts).



> Happy holidays, thefourthvine - and hope you enjoy this ball of feels I collected for you

Willard hadn't expected to miss Ren quite as much as he did - it's not like he'd been left friendless in the wake of Ren leaving for college - and yet the missing him was there, a formless ache that took up residence behind his ribs the morning after Ren disappeared back east in his beloved yellow bug. It never exactly got worse than it was to start, but it didn't go away, either. After awhile, Willard got used to it - he'd had to, what with how Ren seemed to be gone for good. The point was: life had gone on.

So the ache's not quite sure what to do with the fact that Ren's standing in his kitchen, wearing a snow-flecked jacket and carrying a duffel.

"At least something worse didn't go wrong - I left my mom and Aunt Lulu telling wedding horror stories when I headed over here," Ren says. 

"I'm surprised there's that many relatives coming in from out of town."

"There aren't - there's just even fewer places to put 'em. You remember where I had to sleep Senior year."

Willard nods - the Warnicks' place had never been meant to fit three adults, two kids and a teenager on a permanent basis. "Well, there's plenty of room here - and the water pressure's even pretty good."

"My shoulders like the sound of that - I forgot quite how long the drive from Chicago was," Ren says, smiling ruefully. "I thought I remembered, but I think it went and got even longer since I was eighteen."

"Well, uh," Willard starts, then finds he has to clear his throat. "You're in the spare room, upstairs - first door on the right - and the bath's just down the hall. I showered when I came in from the barn, so it's all yours."

***

The water pressure is, in fact, as good as promised - and plenty hot, besides. The only thing getting in the way of it being a perfect showering experience is the fact that Ren just can't seem to shake the image of Willard, standing in this exact spot, naked and wet. There's a little imagination involved in the naked part - the last time Ren saw Willard showering, they were both teenagers - but his dick thinks the results are pretty promising, all the same. It's perking up like it's slid back in time right along with his memories.

Which Ren feels is a problem - it seems like bad manners to jerk off to fantasies of your oblivious host, of _Willard_ , but he's gonna have to do something about his hard-on; it's not like it would be any more polite to walk back downstairs tenting his pajamas.

He tries ignoring it to start, methodically working his way through soaping up and rinsing travel grime out of his hair, then starting at his neck and thoroughly scrubbing a washcloth over one body part at a time all the way down to his toes. Well, every body part except for his junk; he's still hoping it'll take the hint and go soft without any outside assistance. Of course, it doesn't - if anything, it gets harder. So, Plan B: jerk off as mechanically as possible, not thinking about anything in particular. 

Unfortunately, trying to Not Think About Willard works about as well under the circumstances as Not Thinking About A Pink Elephant does in general - which is to say: not at all

So, in the end, he finds himself braced against the tiles, stripping his dick like he's got a clock to beat, and pulling out every trick he knows to get it over with quicker. Twisting and squeezing and rubbing just right aren't what gets him there in the end, though. No, it's the vivid mental image of Willard crowding up against him from behind - silent as always - covering Ren's hand with his own, and helping to bring him off, that does it. He only just manages to muffle his groan by biting down on his forearm, and then he's watching his come stripe the brown tiles.

As he towels off and changes into a sweatshirt and flannel pajama pants, he can't help but think: _this wasn't a problem back when I was an actual teenager - why does it have to be one, now?_ (The obvious answer, of course, is that he hadn't realized how much guys did it for him back then, but still.)

***

"Thanks, again," Ren says as he pads into the kitchen, barefoot, after his shower. "That's much better."

Willard turns from the stove, then turns back to it immediately - ever since Ren turned up on his doorstep, Willard's found it hard to not stare, cataloguing all the ways Ren has changed over the past decade. Now, with his hair still damp and sticking up in even more unruly spikes than usual and his change of clothes, he could almost be his teenage self, sleeping over because it would be a bad idea to try driving the bug home in this weather. Not that that was something they'd done when they actually were teenagers. For all the dance lessons and, well, everything, sleepovers had remained firmly for girls, and girls alone.

"It's really starting to stick out there," he says, directing the words at the saucepan of cocoa he's been keeping a careful eye on - there's a trick to the stirring that he only gets right if he doesn't let his attention wander: too little, and a skin forms on the surface; too much, it somehow takes even longer to heat.

He doesn't hear Ren move, or the curtain being pushed to the side, but a moment later Ren says, "Looks like I got in just in time - can't say I mind not having had to finish the drive in that, after dark."

"First big snow of the year - everybody forgets how to drive," Willard says, dipping a spoonful of cocoa out of the pan and blowing on it; when he slurps it up, after, and it's still nice and warm, he goes over to the cupboard by the sink and gets out a pair of mugs. "Cocoa? There's whiskey if you want."

"Yes, and yes," Ren says, suddenly appearing at Willard's side and leaning against the counter to watch him pour.

Willard finds himself smiling fondly at that, covers by saying, "They fed you, right?"

"Yep - they'd put on dinner for the visiting relatives and everybody buzzing around doing last minute wedding prep. Mostly sandwich fixins and a pot of soup, but Sarah slipped me a slice of leftover pie, too."

"Hard to believe she's in college, now…"

"And Amy's getting married," Ren says, shaking his head. "It's like I turned around and *poof* they'd grown up - I mean, I got updates from my mom, but it just wasn't the same."

Willard doesn't say _you could've come to visit, before this_ \- it's not like he's ever even left the state, himself. Instead, he moves off to get the whiskey out of its cupboard, brings it back to slosh some generously into each of their hot chocolates. "Sorry, no marshmallows," he says as he hands Ren a mug.

***

The living room is still filled with a set of sturdy plaid sofas and dark wood tables, with brown shag carpet underneath. Willard drops into a lone burnt orange armchair, so Ren sprawls across the sofa that sits kitty-corner to it, facing the picture window. Then he tugs the afghan off the back and burrows underneath it.

"Cold?" Willard asks. "Thought you had real winters in Chicago…"

Ren just burrows even deeper and says, "I live in an apartment, and the radiators keep it so warm I can walk around in a t-shirt and bare feet in the middle of February. This is not that."

"True enough," Willard says, sinking lower into his chair and taking a long pull from his hot chocolate.

Ren does the same, and for a bit they drift along in companionable silence, watching the snow fall - it's coming down even heavier, now, than it had been when he peeked out the kitchen window. But the longer they sit there, the more Ren finds himself wondering about Willard - how he's been; what's changed for him; what's going on inside his stubborn, hot-headed brain. It's not like they fell out of touch the minute Ren left for Chicago and college. Ren’s a communicator: he wrote long letters, at first, offered phone calls instead when Willard confessed he wasn’t so good at putting his thoughts down on paper. Those were too expensive to make a habit of, though, and anyway Willard was even less talkative over the phone than he was in person, which made Ren feel bad going on about stuff that Willard probably didn't even care about while the silence stretched out ridiculously down the line from him, so they fell by the wayside, too, eventually.

And yet the way he is in person somehow feels entirely different to how he is on the phone, even though he's clearly not any more talkative than he was when Ren first met him - at least not without prompting. "Did you imagine, back when we were kids, that this is how your life would be? 'Cos I sure didn't…"

Willard snorts and says, "Maybe there was a time when I didn’t understand that I was always gonna end up here, doing this - but if so, I was too young to remember it." 

"The only thing I got right was the Chicago part," Ren says, rueful. "Everything else, even if you'd asked me while I was living here, I woulda gotten wrong. No family, a job I never woulda thought of - I don't even go out dancing much."

That gets a laugh out of Willard. "'S funny - senior year, when you made everything seem a little more possible, even that just meant someday maybe not having to go to the next county over to have fun. And these days I don't even do that much, either." He drinks some more hot chocolate, stares down into the cup for a long moment, then adds, "I still knew that even if I went away to study ag science, the whole point would be that it’d make me better prepared to take over the farm after."

"And I got to college not knowing what the hell I was going to major in - I ended up choosing a sociology-psychology double, if that gossip didn't make its way to you. Got my masters in social work, even." And it's exactly what he wants to be doing, even five years later - though he's maybe been thinking about looking for a new gig. A new challenge.

"I can see that," Willard says with a shrug. "but choices were for people...who weren't me. Even Rusty got to choose - and every time she visits her folks, she seems happy as a pig in shit." 

She chose following Ariel off to college enough states away she couldn't go home easy, Ren knows - which led to a college boyfriend, and a degree in chemistry, and a job in Oklahoma with one of the oil companies. Her boyfriend-turned-husband likes dancing just as much as she does, and according to what his mom heard from hers, they've just started trying for a kid. "Yeah, seems like she's got it figured out - I've got it maybe halfway?"

"Yeah," Willard agrees. "That's about right. You got the job - and so do I - but, man, the relationship thing stinks. Nobody who didn't grow up on a farm wants to marry a farmer - and most of them don't either."

"Well, it's not any easier in the city - I've had one long, post-Ariel relationship, and by the end of that we were mostly together because neither of us wanted to find a new place to live," Ren says, shaking his head. "It was a real nice apartment, though - worth holding onto. Just not worth sticking out the relationship."

Willard snorts again, and the look on his face says _jeez, city people_ \- and, yeah, Ren feels good about this.

***

There's something...nice about going to bed with somebody else in the house, with Ren in the house, just down the hall. Not that that changes Willard's routine any. After Ren finishes in the bathroom, Willard takes his turn at brushing his teeth and pissing, then goes back to his room, makes sure his alarm is set for feeding, and crawls into bed. He's asleep almost before he knows it.

He wakes before his alarm - just like always. But what isn't just like always is the sleepy conviction that he's been rubbing off against Ren - actually the mattress - and the mess he makes in his shorts a moment later. Shit! He hasn't had a wet dream in years. And for it to be about Ren…

That's when the alarm starts going - so there's nothing for it but to put all the shit twisting him up inside aside, slap at the button that turns it off, and get on with the day. The chickens won't feed themselves - or the goats - and he'll have to to shovel a path out to the barn, first. It's probably for the best, if he's being honest; he's never been any good at dealing with feelings appropriately, and half-awake is pretty much a worst-case scenario (that doesn't involve him having too much to drink).

Standing in the warmth of the chicken coop, holding the egg basket and watching the chickens peck at their feed, he feels...warmed from the inside out, too. He's good at this, he knows, but for all he never did have a choice about it, he does like it. Maybe, even with the way things are going for him, it's not too late for him to find someone who can help him produce a kid who'll know from birth, just like he did, that farming's the only life they'll ever know...more than one, so there's a chance one of them'll actually want it.

Maybe Ren can help him out with that at the wedding - it's not like he ever needs to know about how Willard started his day.

***

Ren's digging through the fridge for bread and other essential breakfast supplies when Willard finally comes back in from the barn. He'd stayed in bed, half-asleep, for another hour after Willard's alarm had woken him. But his body's pretty used to getting up early during the school year, so it wasn't that hard to drag himself out of bed, dig out a pair of socks to ward off the chill of the floors (he's learned from the night before), and head downstairs. He hadn't smelled coffee being brewed, earlier, and figured it was a safe bet Willard would want some when he got back from doing his morning chores.

So he found the pot, put it on, and got to work figuring out breakfast - which means Willard coming in with a basket of fresh eggs is a game-changer.

And that's leaving aside the whole thing where seeing Willard makes him light up inside with...happiness. Yeah. He's not getting a crush on his high school best friend a whole ten years too late. And definitely not when he has to head back to Chicago the day after the wedding (assuming they aren't still snowed in). So. "French toast," he suggests to Willard. "I definitely think I'm feeling some french toast this morning." He's mostly a peanut butter toast or cereal guy, but what're snow days for if not to eat what you want in between playing in the snow...

"Did you see the bacon while you were digging around in there?" Willard says. 

And that sounds like agreement to Ren, so whatever else today may bring, it's off to a pretty good start. "Got it right here."

***

After they eat breakfast, Ren volunteers to help with the rest of the shoveling they need to do if they want to have any chance of making it to the wedding tomorrow. And for all his huddling under the afghan the night before, he's actually pretty well-prepared for being out in the snow: decent boots, a warm jacket, waterproof gloves - and a scarf and hat. The only thing Willard has to lend him is longjohns - and he does his best not to think about how he feels about that.

It turns out Ren's pretty good with a shovel, too, so they make solid progress for the first hour or so - right up until a snowball smacks him in the back of the head.

Between the snowball fight that follows, which devolves into snowy wrestling - which would've been a problem if it weren't for the cold - and the sitting on the couch together watching a dumb movie on TV, later that afternoon, and the dancing practice he agrees to (like a complete fool) that evening, he can't exactly call the outcome the following morning a surprise. He wishes it were. But, no, looks like the previous morning wasn't a fluke, and he's gone and developed a stupid thing for a guy, who's going back to Chicago the next day, and probably won't come back again until Sarah gets married - or somebody dies. The feeling behind his ribs doesn't know what to do about any of this.

***

When Willard asks for help with his tie before the wedding - and Ren has to stand there facing him in his nice, black suit, and keep his hands steady while he does up the knot, there's a moment where he half-thinks Willard is staring at his mouth. Which has to be the previous day talking, what with how it had felt like one, long, extended date capped off by a round of fucking slow-dancing. After which they'd both gone to their separate beds, and that had been that. Or at least that's what Ren has been telling himself.

The wedding itself is simple but beautiful. Willard would've sat on the bride's side, anyway - he's never met the guy Amy's marrying, and he's known her his entire life - but there's something about sitting beside him, wearing his suit and knowing that he tied that tie, that leaves Ren just...feeling things. He's not sure he could put a name to them even if he wanted to, but he definitely doesn't mind it when the music changes to the wedding march and Sarah enters, wearing a blue velvet dress and carrying a little bouquet. There's a guy escorting her, but he's not anybody Ren knows. And then it's Amy's turn to enter, on the arm of her father, and all Ren can think is: no fathers, here. Not that he'd be the one being given away. If he were to ever have a wedding. He's mostly worked out his shit when it comes to his own father, but he still doesn't hear much after that.

The reception is in the hall next door, and it's simple but beautiful, too. But after watching Amy dance with her new husband, and with her father, after - and dancing with Sarah, himself, because he's a good cousin, well, he has to escape outside. Because he can't dance with Willard here. He knew that, obviously, but he hadn't realized quite how much he cared right up until the second slow song started and he looked for Willard and had to tell himself that it was a good thing he couldn't find him.

What comes out of his mouth when he steps out the back and finds Willard there is also a surprise. "You're not dancing."

"Nobody I want to dance with," Willard says with an awkward shrug. Like he's admitting something shameful.

"You were having a good time last night - I thought." And Ren can't ask what he wants to ask, not right out, anyway.

"Yeah. With you," Willard says, fighting a blush. And the look he's giving Ren says that, yeah, they're probably on something like the same page, here.

And that might be as much of an answer as he's gonna get here, where anybody could come along and overhear them. But it seems to Ren that they need to do some talking once they can get away from all this. For now. "We could get in on a line dance or two?"

"Yeah, okay," Willard says, and now he's fighting a smile.

And Ren already knows he's gonna miss this when he has to go back to Chicago tomorrow - but that's a problem to solve after the dancing and the cake. Sure, none of this will be easy, even after they've had a chance to talk. But Ren's never been one to give up on something that matters to him - and neither has Willard - so he thinks they have a fighting chance, which is all that matters as far as he's concerned.


End file.
